Small drone for an art gallery

Fatamorgana

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Hi.
I own a small art gallery arranged over three levels, and would value some drone footage from time to time to show both the layout of the gallery as we change it weekly and specifically hung artworks. We have a soo exhibition each month which would work well?

We don't need anything with huge file sizes, in fact our iPhone 5 seems to produce excellent jpegs and video for social media feeds / our website.

That's what go me thinking: why not get proficient with a drone (outside the confines of the gallery initially) and see if this approach to showing our artwork isn't worth exploring.

This means we would value something reasonably compact and not super / very wide angled.

This is new territory for me, I'm more happy with Adobe Lr and Ps and a digital camera, so any pointers would be great.

Two levels illustrated in the following pictures.

Thanks

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Personally there's no way I'd consider flying a drone in an environment like that as it's likely to quickly end in a crash. Drone positioning isn't very precise so their position moves about as they hover and they can take a reasonable amount of space to break so they need a good amount of free space to ensure they can maneuver. There are models with a range of avoidance sensors fitted all around them like the Mavic 2 series but they're far from fool proof and would likely not see many of the obstacles in the photos above.

When flying indoors the drones generally cannot use GPS which can cause them to drift significantly and unexpectedly which there would be no space to correct in such a small area. I've seen plenty cases even in much more open areas like sports halls where the drones have crashed because they've struggled to get a position lock on the floor and they've no GPS so they've ended up in a severe drift which they couldn't correct in time before they smashed into a wall or pillar.
 
Yes, my view is the same , not the sort of environment to fly a drone. But you could mount a action cam on a selfie stick and walk around , the stick I mean not to get yourself in the picture ....unless you really want too :) , but to get the height and views from the corners of the rooms. My selfie stick extends to about 6 foot . These action cams , most have wide angle lens's take super pictures ,many in 4k too. My Firefly6 has a 90* lens and takes superb pictures and video's and another action cam ,a cheaper one has a button on to click for zoom or wide angle. You dont have to pay £400 for a Gopro , there's some cams alot cheaper than that .
A lot safer than flying a drone!
This is the sort of thing I use.
selfie.jpg
 
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I was thinking about suggesting an Osmo Mobile 3:


It's a mobile phone gimbal with a tripod mount underneath and would allow the similar smooth spanning shots the drone can take.
 
Yes the Osmo would be an option ,but limits the height of the photos. A selfie stick with a camera would give that aditional height from a corner of the room ,say looking down. Of course both stick and camera would have to be bought.
My firefly6 has tons of uses, in it's water proof case can be used on a bike , as a dashcam , I use it on a drone with a gimbal . It has a built in gyro so I get good stabilsed shots.
But a normal mobile phone takes good photos so just get a selfie stick and give it a try.
Post you results for us to scrutinize!
 
I've got a Mavic Pro 2 and it would go absolutely insane with obstacle avoidance. The Mavic mini doesn't have any obstacle avoidance, is small and can provide some really smooth shots. A decent pilot with a mavic mini could be what you're looking for.
 
A few jerky movements on those sticks could do a bit of damage to those nice looking framed prints :cool: unless there all behind glass.
 
Yes the Osmo would be an option ,but limits the height of the photos. A selfie stick with a camera would give that aditional height from a corner of the room ,say looking down. Of course both stick and camera would have to be bought.

I don't see how the Osmo would limit the height but a selfie stick wouldn't, the Osmo has a mount underneath which allows it to be used at any height and the stabilisation is going to be useful at a greater height than a normal camera where movements are likely to be more jerky.
 
I have just bought the mavic mini. I have flown this indoors (actually going through a single door into the conservatory, from the garden rushing out of the rain) a couple of times.
Although it would be achievable, and I had no issues with is drifting, I would say it would not be suitable for your use case.
I would be concerned that the draft would blow things off of the shelves or the wall. The down-draft whilst outside doesn't appear massive, but once inside it is noticeable.
IF you just wanted to take a single quick fly-through as a gimmick once, then something like a cheap £15 drone with an FPV camera would probably be best, the mass of these would be too small to cause a significant damage to a picture behind glass (but it could still take a chunk out of an uncovered oil-painting)
 
Or you could use a DJI Ryze Tello. It is designed to be flown indoors and outdoors, has the prop guards and uses DJI technology for a very stable drone. And - it is inexpensive.

I don't have videos of indoor shots (flown it lots of times indoors - just not as interesting as outdoors) - but here are some samples of what it can do:


 
BTW - I've seen "cages" for the DJI Ryze Tello that would ensure it would not rip through any of the fine art work (if not behind glass)
 
Thanks all.

I've tried 3x gimbal devices, all of them around the £120 price point and each one was utter rubbish. Not sure why but they all fail after about six week, that might be as little as 20 mins of footage.

Don't want a full 90 degree lens, ideally something less, maybe 50-60 degree?
I have somewhere a GoPro4 Silver (?), maybe I should dig that out but really don't care for distorted verticals / horizontals.

Cheers
 
What about a small lightweight camcorder? My JVC it tiny and light . It would fit ...............actually it does fit onto my selfie stick .....I've just tried it , I can reach 10" ,arms stretched .The camcorder is so light you can hardly notice it .......tried it without the battery though , but that doesn't weigh much.
 
Thanks all.

I've tried 3x gimbal devices, all of them around the £120 price point and each one was utter rubbish. Not sure why but they all fail after about six week, that might be as little as 20 mins of footage.

Don't want a full 90 degree lens, ideally something less, maybe 50-60 degree?
I have somewhere a GoPro4 Silver (?), maybe I should dig that out but really don't care for distorted verticals / horizontals.

Cheers

I don't know which gimbals you've used but I've had both the Osmo Mobile 2 and 3 both which work well and still work well at a year and two years old. These gimbals are both well rated so your poor experience with gimbals is certainly not normal.
 

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